The business benefits and opportunities offered by Dreamforce to Salesforce partners are increasing year on year, and nowhere is this more true than in the Asia Pacific region, where our partners are involved in 70% of all Salesforce engagements.

Reaching that 70% figure is an incredible milestone for us and for our partners, who have previously leveraged our Dreamforce event to achieve significant business goals. This includes forming and solidifying relationships with customers, and setting strategy for the next few years. That’s why Dreamforce, in San Francisco next week from 25 to 28 September, is such a vital event for so many businesses, because it benefits them on a number of levels.

The majority of our partners engage with current and potential customers at Dreamforce. In that environment, they tell us that close rates rise dramatically as attendees are truly engaged. In fact, it’s the single biggest closing event of the year.

Outside of the pure business side of the event, Dreamforce is also an important educational experience. Not only does Salesforce make a number of important announcements, but new products are demonstrated, the future directions of recent acquisitions are explained, and partners are able to recognise new opportunities and, as a result, recalibrate their strategic plans.

What are the big announcements?

It’s no secret that Salesforce is the world’s number one and fastest-growing CRM platform. Some of this growth comes through acquisition. Three exciting businesses that have recently joined the Salesforce fold are Mulesoft, Datorama and CloudCraze.

Learning what our consolidated businesses are able to add to the Salesforce portfolio will offer a revealing window into the future. At Dreamforce, expect announcements to be made around the integration of these businesses and more.

Among many keynotes will be one from Marc Benioff, Salesforce Founder and Chairman, and the AppExchange Partner Keynote: Harness the Power of Network Effects & Ecosystems. Partners will find golden nuggets of information relevant to their businesses from these sessions. 
 

"Learning what our consolidated businesses are able to add to the Salesforce portfolio will offer a revealing window into the future."

Of course, we’re keeping more than a few major announcements under wraps until the event itself.

Many of our big announcements are the culmination of work that has stemmed from customer and partner feedback, and many of our APAC leadership team will be on-hand to answer questions and hear suggestions. We’re in a state of continuous improvement and Dreamforce is an important part of that.

What’s in it for partners?

Consider the greatest objectives of Salesforce partners right now – creating a real point of difference for customers, helping their customers grow and succeed with Salesforce, and implementing systems that allow customers to see into the future.

Dreamforce keynotes, panels, breakout sessions and one-on-ones can provide solutions to all of these challenges, and more. For example, as businesses increasingly take advantage of the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI), best-in-class systems such as Einstein bring real power to partners and their customers. The Lightning platform provides the key to delivering truly transformational customer experiences. Using these technologies, partners’ customers are able to see data and trends that they were not able to identify previously, in real-time. Our partners are already seeing the benefits of these technologies.
 

"Outside of the pure business side of the event, Dreamforce is also an important educational experience."

More importantly, Dreamforce is about networking with customers. Our customers often tell us that they reaffirm their partnership decisions based on a Dreamforce meeting.

The event is also about networking with other partners. Aren’t partners in competition with each other? We do see partners competing in the marketplace although we see this shifting to more of a collaborative approach leveraging best in class skills; it’s all about collaboration these days.

We recently held our Partner Executive Summit in California and, although partners can  compete, we saw many collaborating. From this and other events, we’ve seen partners form truly unique relationships. In some cases, we see them come together in a formal manner to approach major bids, where they might have some gaps or complementary skill sets, for instance. At Dreamforce, we’re building on that by providing plenty of opportunities for networking, particularly in the APAC on Tour lounge.

Essentially, Dreamforce is about clearly understanding the opportunity at hand and appreciating the very latest technological advancements in CRM. Such knowledge helps a partner to develop an understanding outside of their own work. A realisation of what is now possible offers partners the ability to better recognise their customers’ needs and their customers’ vision, sometimes even before the customers do themselves.
 

"Dreamforce is about clearly understanding the opportunity at hand and appreciating the very latest technological advancements in CRM."

It also helps partners better understand the role they play to support Salesforce, in terms of customer engagement. When we each do a better job, the three-way partnership is cemented.

Ultimately, Dreamforce is about Salesforce and partners aligning ourselves very closely, listening to the growth expectations of customers, then showing the customers that we’re aligned with them too. It’s a formidable business offering and a very convincing reason to attend Dreamforce 2018.

Dreamforce is on 25–28 September 2018 (San Francisco time) but if you won’t be there in person, you can still learn and be inspired by the best sessions and keynotes via Salesforce Live. Check out the broadcast schedule and tune in here.  

You can also follow us on Twitter or Instagram to keep up with all the action live from San Francisco and check out the Salesforce Partners Twitter page to keep up to date with a lot of the partner activities and updates.